In LCD televisions, a large number of discharge lamps are used to provide bright backlight and high quality images. The popular discharge lamps in LCD panel backlights include CCFL, EEFL and FFL. Usually, DC to AC switching inverters power these lamps with very high AC voltages.
A common technique for converting a relatively low DC input voltage to a higher AC output voltage is to chop up the DC input signal with power switches, filter out the harmonic signals produced by the chopping, and output a sine-wave-like AC signal. The voltage of the AC signal is stepped up with a transformer to a relatively high voltage since the running voltage could be 500 volts over a range of 0.5 to 6 milliamps. CCFLs are usually driven by AC signals having frequencies that range from 50 to 100 kilohertz.
To ensure uniform backlight brightness and to maximize the lamps lives, lamps need to carry substantially equal currents. Therefore, it is desirable to accurately regulate the lamp currents. While each inverter can drive a pair of lamps in series to achieve good current matching within the two lamps, the large size LCD display panels may require over 20 lamps and, therefore, more than 10 inverters. This significantly increases the cost and size of a display system.